Lorraine Heggessey, the former BBC1 controller, has said the corporation's commissioning process is too bureaucratic and should be significantly pared back as part of cost-cutting plans.

Heggessey said the BBC imposes a huge burden on programme-makers with layers of management and working groups.

"The BBC places such a burden on its staff in terms of all these other things they have to do that aren't necessarily to do with their job," she told the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival on Thursday.

"When you leave the BBC, it's suddenly like I can do my day job in a day rather than take all this other stuff home with me all the time."

Heggessey left the BBC in 2005 and is now executive chairwoman of the independent production firm Boom Pictures.

She compared the BBC's commissioning process to ITV's, which she said had far fewer staff and was very efficient.

Asked by the media pundit Steve Hewlett, who chaired a session on the future of the BBC, whether the corporation's commissioning management should be significantly trimmed, Heggessey replied: "I think it should."

She added: "The BBC has a very complex commissioning system with probably too many layers. The BBC imposes such a bureaucracy on these people so they have to go to so many meetings rather than concentrate on their jobs.

"You have too many people in the chain of power to make a decision. It's that thing of don't take a no from somebody who can't give you a yes."